Subsidies and the Price of Health Insurance

Back in 2010 when ObamaCare was enacted, the Pelosi-Reid Congress was running its second trillion-dollar deficit, with two more still to come. So just when they were borrowing money like never before, Democrats passed the biggest entitlement in decades.

At Forbes on January 4, Ben Munro wrote that “2015 looks to be the first year healthcare spending will reach $10,000 per person.” From that alone, one might conclude that Americans are a sickly lot, for that $10K a person adds up to well more than $3T for the nation. And now it’s being reported that health insurance companies need to raise the price of premiums for 2016.

On June 1 in “Will these big Obamacare rates get approved?” at CNBC, Dan Mangan reported: “There are some eye-popping proposed Obamacare rate increases for next year.” Mangan quoted Blue Cross Blue Shield: “The main driver of the increase in the proposed rates is that the actual claims [are] significantly higher than expected.”

On June 2 in “Health insurers seek big premium hikes for ObamaCare plans in 2016,” Fox News reported: “Dozens of health insurers selling plans under ObamaCare have requested hefty premium increases for 2016, according to preliminary information published Monday by the White House […] many of which are in the double-digit percentages.”

On June 10 in “Why Are The 2016 Obamacare Rate Increases So Large?” at Forbes, Robert Laszewski, a frequent guest on cable TV news, wrote:

You just can’t look at this data and come away with a conclusion other than the big cost increases driven by too few people signing up has started. And it has started a year earlier than most of us expected. … What has concerned many actuaries is how the market penetration for Obamacare slowed considerably in year two in the states with the best first year enrollment results.

Via: American Thinker

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